Black Hills

by Nora Roberts

  “I don’t know. I don’t have all the details.” Jenna glanced toward the window, and the dark. “They’re looking for him.”

  “I’m sure they’ll find him.”

  “They’ve looked for the man who shot your cougar, the man who came here. They haven’t found him.”

  “He doesn’t want to be found,” Lil pointed out. “This hiker does.”

  “They’re calling for rain before morning. Hard rain.” Jenna looked back toward the window. “You can smell it coming. I have a sick feeling about this, Lil. A sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that more than hard rain’s coming.”

  18

  The rain came, and came hard. At dawn, Lil dragged herself back into the house, hung her slicker up to dry, pulled off her soaked and muddy boots.

  She wanted to grab another hour’s sleep. Two if she could manage it, then spend a couple days in a hot shower and eat like a lum berjack.

  As of dawn, the hiker—James Tyler of St. Paul, according to her sources—hadn’t been found. She hoped the worst that happened was he’d spent an even more miserable night than she had.

  She moved quietly in her bare feet out of the kitchen and toward the stairs. But when she glanced at the living room, the sofa was empty. Gone home, she assumed. She hadn’t seen his truck, but then in the driving rain she hadn’t seen much of anything. Relaxing, she climbed the stairs.

  Set the alarm, she told herself. Ninety minutes would be a good compromise. Then bed. Warm, soft, dry bed.

  When she stepped into her room she saw that warm, soft, dry bed was already occupied.

  She gritted her teeth against the curse that sprang to her tongue, but when she started to back out, Coop’s eyes opened.

  “I’m not sleeping on the damn couch.”

  “Fine. It’s morning, so you can get up and go. You can make coffee if you want it, but be quiet. I need some sleep.” She stalked across the bedroom to the bath, and shut the door, firmly.

  So, shower first, she thought. She’d sleep better for it. Nice hot shower, then bed. No big deal. And no reason the man shouldn’t make use of the bed after standing out in the dark for several hours.

  She stripped off, leaving her clothes in a puddle on the floor, then switched the shower on, full and hot as she could stand. She actually moaned when she stepped in and felt the heat beat through her chilled skin to her chilled bones.

  She hissed when the curtain flicked back. “Goddamn it!”

  “I want a shower.”

  “It’s my shower.”

  He simply stepped in behind her. “Plenty of room, plenty of water.”

  She shoved her wet hair out of her face. “You go too far, Cooper.”

  “Too far would be putting my hands on you, which I won’t.”

  “I’m tired. I’m not going to argue with you.”

  “Good. I’m not in the mood for an argument.” He pumped out some of the shower gel, soaped up. “We’re going to get some flooding with this rain.”

  She just let the water beat over her head. She didn’t want conversation either.

  She stepped out first, wrapped her body in a towel, wrapped her hair in another. In the bedroom she pulled on flannel pants and a T-shirt, then sat on the side of the bed to set her alarm.

  He came out, damp hair, jeans, and a shirt he hadn’t bothered to button. “Did they find the hiker?”

  “No. Not yet. Not when I came in.”

  He nodded, then sat to pull on socks, watching as she slid into the bed he’d left warm for her. “Your hair’s wet.”

  “I don’t care. I’m tired.”

  “I know.” He rose, went to the bed. Leaning over, he pressed his lips to hers, as gently as he might to a sleepy child. “I’ll be back later.”

  He trailed a finger down her cheek before he walked to the door. “It wasn’t just sex, Lil. It never was.”

  She kept her eyes closed, listened to him go down. Waited until she’d heard the front door open, then shut behind him.

  And gave in to the turmoil he managed to set off inside her. As the rain pounded, she cried herself to sleep.

  IT RAINED THROUGH the morning, canceling scheduled trail rides and rentals. Coop dealt with the stock at the farm, and gave up cursing the rain and wind after the first hour.

  No point.

  With his grandfather set cleaning and repairing tack, and his grandmother hip-deep in paperwork—both in the warm and dry—he loaded two more horses into the trailer.

  “Plenty of shelter in the hills,” Lucy said as she packed up a lunch for Coop. “I pray that poor man found some. God knows how they’ll find him in this weather.”

  “We’ve got six horses out with volunteers. I’ll take these into town in case they want more. Flash floods are going to be a problem.”

  “So much trouble. Too much. It comes down like the rain.”

  “It’ll clear. If they need more men on the search, I’ll let you know. Otherwise, I’ll be back in a few hours.”

  “You’ll be staying at Lil’s again tonight.”

  He stopped, one hand on the door. “Yes. Until this is settled.”

  “And you and Lil?” She gave him her keen, no-nonsense look. “Are you going to settle that, too?”

  “Working on it.”

  “I don’t know what happened between you all those years ago, and I’m not asking. But if you love that girl, stop wasting time. I’d like to see you settled and happy. And, damn it, I’d like some babies around here.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “That might be jumping the gun.”

  “Not from where I’m standing. If you go with the search party, you take a rifle.”

  She handed him the sack holding his lunch, then laid her hands on his cheeks. “You take care of my boy, because he’s precious to me.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  Nothing to worry about, he thought as he dealt with the miserable drive into Deadwood. He wasn’t the one being stalked, or the one lost somewhere in the hills. All he was doing was what came next. Provide the horses, and another pair of eyes if they were needed. And for Lil? All he could do was be there.

  Did he love her?

  He’d always loved her. He’d done what came next there, too, and lived without her. And look where she’d landed. Exactly where she wanted to be—needed to be. Doing what she’d dreamed of doing. She’d made her mark, and in his way so had he.

  Now, well, he’d just keep doing what came next. The problem was, he didn’t know where he stood with her.

  Friend? Occasional lover? A port in the storm?

  Screw that. It wasn’t enough this time around, not for him. So he’d push, because that came next as he saw it. Then both of them would see where he stood.

  In the meantime, he’d do whatever it took to protect her. She’d just have to deal with it.

  Gull came out of the stables as Coop pulled up. Water poured off the brim of his hat, sluiced down the shine of his slicker as he helped unload the horses.

  “Haven’t found him yet,” Gull shouted over the thunder of the rain. “No way to track in this mess. Got flooding between the snowmelt and the rain. It’s bad up there, boss.”

  “They’re going to need more horses.” Coop looked toward the black and angry sky. Even if choppers could go up, what the hell could they see in this? Ground search, such as it was, would be the best bet.

  “They’re working on coordinating or some such on his cell phone. Trying to find the signal.” Gull led his horse into a dry stall. “I don’t know how they’re doing there. But if you don’t need me, I figure I can replace somebody who’s been out in this long enough.”

  “Take whichever mount you want and check in. You keep in touch with me, Gull.”

  “Will do. He’s got any sense he’s holed up in a cave on high ground. Don’t know if he’s got any sense. Everybody else, so I hear, who was up on a trail or camping, they’re accounted for. Just this guy from St. Paul.”

  “It’s a long time to be lost
in this weather.”

  “Damn right. Word is they haven’t found the first sign of him yet.” As he spoke, Gull saddled a big bay gelding. “Couple day-trippers saw him, even had a word or two with him at the junction on Crow Peak. They took the spur trail south, and he was headed north to the summit, so he said. But that was before noon yesterday.”

  “Did they see anybody else?”

  “At the junction, yeah, and on the spur trail. But not heading to the summit. He went on his own.”

  “Then let’s hope he has sense. If they need more relief, you let them know I’m around. And you keep in touch.”

  Coop drove over to the office, brewed a pot of coffee. Until he was called on, he intended to find out more about Ethan Howe.

  He booted up the computer and picked up the phone.

  He spent the next hour bouncing between cops and investigators in Alaska, North Dakota, New York, slowly, tediously filling in a few blanks. He talked to Howe’s parole officer and former landlords and added a few names to his call list.

  As far as known companions, they were few and far between. The man was a loner, a drifter, preferred low-population areas, and as far as Coop could discern, had rarely stayed in one place more than six months at a time. Usually camping. Occasionally motels or weekly rooms. Paid in cash.

  Employment sketchy. Day laborer, ranch hand, trail guide.

  Kept to himself. Quiet. Hard worker, but unreliable. Came and went.

  Coop dug deeper, followed the dots to a bar in Wise River, Montana.

  Spinning wheels, he thought as he made the call. Chasing my own tail. Might as well throw a dart at a map.

  “Bender’s.”

  “I’m looking for the owner or manager.”

  “I’m Charlie Bender. This is my place.”

  “Was it your place four years ago, July and August?”

  “Been my place sixteen years. What’s the problem?”

  “Mr. Bender, I’m Cooper Sullivan. I’m a private investigator licensed in New York.”

  “Then why are you calling from South Dakota? I got caller ID, buddy.”

  “I’m in South Dakota. I’ll give you my license number if you want to check it out.” He might’ve sold his business, but his license was still good. “I’m trying to find someone who worked for you for a couple months the summer of ’05.”

  “Who?”

  “Ethan Howe.”

  “Don’t ring, right off. Four years is a space of time, and I get a lot of people in and out of here. Why do you want him?”

  “He may be connected to a missing-person’s case I’m working on. He’d’ve been late twenties,” Coop began and gave a description.

  “Sounds like everybody else.”

  “He’d have been fresh out of prison for assault.”

  “Still not cutting him out of the herd.”

  “He claims he’s part Sioux, likes to brag about his mountain-man skills. Keeps to himself, but he’s very polite and charming with the ladies. At least initially.”

  “Chief. We called him Chief mostly because he talked about being blood kin to Crazy Horse after he’d had a couple beers. Just another asshole. I recollect he wore what he said was a bear-tooth necklace—talked about how he and his pa hunted bear and other bullshit. He worked good enough when he was here, but it wasn’t for long. Then he took off with my best waitress.”

  “Got a name on her?”

  “Yeah. Molly Pickens. She worked for me four years before Chief came along. Then she lit out with him, and I was short two people. Had to drag my wife in to wait tables, and I heard about it for weeks. So I remember.”

  “Do you know how I can get in touch with Molly?”

  “Haven’t seen or heard of her since that August.”

  Coop felt a buzz at the back of his skull. “Does she have family? Friends? Someone I can get in touch with?”

  “Look, buddy, I don’t keep tabs on people. She came in here looking for work. I gave her work. She got on fine with the rest, the customers. Minded her own business, and I minded mine.”

  “Where was she from?”

  “Christ, you’re a nosy bastard. Back east somewhere. Said once she’d had enough of her old man—couldn’t say if that was husband or father—and hit the road. She never gave me any trouble, till she took up with Chief.”

  “She left you without notice. Did she take her things?”

  “Didn’t have much. Packed up some clothes and such, cleared out her bank account, and took off in her old Ford Bronco.”

  “Did she like the outdoors? Hiking, camping?”

  “What the fuck? Are you looking for him or her?”

  “Right now? Both of them.”

  Bender heaved out an audible breath. “Now that you mention it, she liked being out and about. She was a good, strong girl. Liked to go off, take photographs in the park on her days off. Wanted to be a photographer, she said. She picked up some extra money selling photographs to tourists. I expect she landed on her feet somewhere.”

  Coop wasn’t so sure of it. He worked Bender for more details, scrawling notes.

  When he’d compiled everything, he sat back, shut his eyes, let his mind turn it over. Patterns, he thought. Patterns and circles and cycles. They were always there if you looked for them.

  He shut everything down and went to see Willy.

  The sheriff’s face was pasty with exhaustion, his eyes bloodshot, and his voice like the bottom of a gravel pit. “Caught something.” He sneezed heroically into a red bandanna. “Goddamn spring. Came back down from the search about a half hour ago.” He lifted a thick white mug. “Cup-a-Soup. Can’t taste a damn thing, but my ma always says you down chicken soup for a cold. I’m downing.”

  “You haven’t found him.”

  Willy shook his head. “A man can barely find his own pecker out in this mess. Supposed to let up tomorrow. That poor bastard’s alive, he’s miserable.” He drank, wincing. “Throat feels like my tonsils took sandpaper to it. It’s only been a day. He didn’t get hurt or dead, and he holed up out of the rain, he’ll do okay. He had pack food. Energy bars, water, trail mix, and the like. Wouldn’t starve. We’re mostly worried he’d get caught in a flash and drown.”

  “Do you need more hands up there?”

  “We got it covered. The fact is I’m worried somebody else is going to drown or fall off a damn cliff. Two on the search team had to be brought out. Got a broken ankle and what we thought was a heart attack. Just indigestion, it turns out. If we need to go up again tomorrow, we’ll need fresh horses.”

  “You’ll have them. Willy—”

  He broke off when a woman came to the door. “Sheriff.”

  “Mrs. Tyler. Come right in here and sit down.” Wheezing, Willy got to his feet to lead her to a chair. “Now, you shouldn’t oughta be out in this weather.”

  “I can’t just sit in the hotel room. I’m going crazy. I need to know what’s going on. I need to know something.”

  “We’re doing everything we can. We’ve got a lot of men looking for your husband, Mrs. Tyler. Men who know the trails, who’ve done plenty of search-and-rescues before. You told me your husband was a sensible man.”

  “Usually.”

  She dashed a hand over her brimming eyes. From the look of them, Coop doubted she’d closed them for more than an hour since her husband had gone missing.